I strongly favored Newt for 2008 and, although I have felt a bit let down by him in the last few years, he remains someone I consider seriously. Here is some of his current thinking.

================Reagan's Lessons for the Crisis in Egypt by Newt Gingrich

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the 38th annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Over 10,000 conservatives attended last year's CPAC, worried about the left-wing overreach of the Obama administration and determined to do what it takes to defeat the Left at the polls in November.

This historic attendance at CPAC in 2010 was followed by a historic election, in which we saw the largest one party pickup in the House of Representatives since 1948. It was an enormous victory for the power of conservative principles.

Of course, after such a historic victory, there is the question, "Now what?"

Remarkably, attendance for this year's CPAC will be even larger than last year's record attendance. Almost 12,000 people have registered. It is clear that the momentum against President Obama and the left is building as people realize the 2012 elections will be a decisive moment for the country.

Many conservatives, however, also recognize that the next two years should not only be spent preparing to win at the polls. We must also develop broad support for a governing agenda that can be implemented by a new conservative President and conservative Congress.

In other words, CPAC this year will be important not just in outlining why we must reject the left wing governance of the Obama administration and Reid Senate, but also in articulating what a center right coalition would replace it with.

With this challenge of replacement in mind, I will focus my speech tomorrow at CPAC on one such area that badly needs replacement if we are to keep America safe and create robust economic growth with millions of new jobs: American energy policy.

I will be driving four main themes during my speech:

It is in our national security interest to produce more American energy. We must reduce the world's dependence on oil from dangerous and unstable countries, especially in the Middle East.

In contrast to this urgent national security need, the Obama administration's policy has been almost the exact opposite of what is required. In effect, they have been waging war against the American energy industry.

A comprehensive energy strategy that maximized all forms of American energy development would not only make the US and our allies dramatically safer, it would make us much better off economically.

Part of this strategy would be to replace the Environmental Protection Agency with an Environmental Solutions Agency ] that achieves better environmental outcomes through an emphasis on the transformative power of new technology and a collaborative approach with industry and state and local governments (as opposed to the bureaucratic, regulatory model of the current EPA that does more to kill jobs and halt American energy development than it does to protect the environment). You can watch my speech live at 12:30 ET tomorrow by signing up at the CPAC website.

Ronald Reagan: 100 Years Old, But Still a Timeless Message This year's CPAC conference is well-timed on the heels of Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday.

Callista and I were fortunate enough to participate in Reagan Centennial events in Illinois and at the Reagan Library last weekend, including a visit to Ronald Reagan's birthplace in Tampico, IL. You can see pictures of our visit at my Facebook page.

It was Ronald Reagan who delivered one of the most memorable CPAC speeches in 1975, calling for the Republican Party to raise a "banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors".

This advice is as true today as it has been at any time before. Boldness would be an especially effective contrast to the timidity and confusion that has characterized the Obama administration's response to the protests in Egypt.

There is, however, another speech delivered by Ronald Reagan at CPAC that may resonate even more today.

Titled, America's Purpose in the World the speech argues that American leadership requires us to understand and express forcefully what makes America great and similarly to understand and speak clearly about how starkly our enemies stand in opposition to those values:

"The themes of a sound foreign policy should be no mystery, nor the result of endless agonizing reappraisals. They are rooted in our past -- in our very beginning as a nation...Our principles were revolutionary...Our example inspired others, imperfectly at times, but it inspired them nevertheless...To this day, America is still the abiding alternative to tyranny. That is our purpose in the world -- nothing more and nothing less."

"To carry out that purpose, our fundamental aim in foreign policy must be to ensure our own survival and to protect those others who share our values. Under no circumstances should we have any illusions about the intentions of those who are enemies of freedom."

"...If we are to continue to be that example -- if we are to preserve our own freedom -- we must understand those who would dominate us and deal with them with determination."

The Lessons of Ronald Reagan for Egypt, #1:Know Our Values and Protect Those Who Share Our Values It is hard to read Reagan's message from his 1978 CPAC speech and not think immediately about today.

Reagan was referring to the failure of the United States under Jimmy Carter to stand up for human rights against Soviet totalitarianism. But the same principles apply today to our struggle with radical Islamism and, in particular, to the unfolding crisis in Egypt.

First, it must be the policy of the United States to defend consistently and resolutely the standards for the universal rights of man outlined in the Declaration of Independence and codified into law in the Constitution.

This principle has much deeper and more complicated ramifications than a shallow support for democratic elections. Instead, we should be on the side of genuine freedom for the people of the world.

The fact that the two U.S. backed democratic governments in Afghanistan and Iraq are refusing to protect the religious liberty of Christians and other minority religions (or worse, are complicit in their persecution) is evidence of a total lack of clarity regarding the purpose of US foreign policy. ( See here and here for examples.)

With regards to the situation in Egypt, the principles Reagan outlined in this speech tell us that, of course, we should be on the side of the Egyptian people and we should be prepared to help them move toward a democracy.

These principles also tell us, though, that the people of Egypt will be no better off if the Mubarak dictatorship is replaced by a Radical Islamist dictatorship that implements an even worse form of oppression. A replay of what happened in Gaza in 2006 when Hamas was able to strong-arm a victory in their elections would be a disaster.

This means that the United States must be willing to stand by the military and other stable institutions within Egypt as they oversee a transition period that allows for genuinely free and fair elections, with new political parties and leaders in an environment that protects freedoms of speech, the press and free assembly.

Moving toward elections too soon will create an enormous opening for the radical Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, which despite its official ban in Egypt is still the largest and most organized opposition group to the government. Under no circumstances should the United States be willing to support a government in Egypt that lifts this ban against the Muslim Brotherhood.

Ronald Reagan would also have understood that despite troublesome aspects of his rule, Hosni Mubarak has been a U.S. ally who has kept the peace with Israel. Compared to Obama, Reagan would have been much more discreet about pressuring Mubarak to leave office, recognizing that publicly abandoning him would send the wrong signal to other world leaders about how the U.S. treats its allies.

The Lessons of Ronald Reagan for Egypt, #2:Understand Our Enemies and Speak the Truth About Them There has been a lot of left-wing "sophisticated" analysis arguing that the United States should treat the Muslim Brotherhood as a legitimate democratic voice in the Middle East.

This is nonsense.

The Brotherhood's insignia is two crossed swords under the Koran. Its founding slogan is " Allah is our objective, the Prophet is our leader, the Koran is our law, Jihad is our way, and dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope." Its Palestinian branch is Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.

It is evidence of the elite's profound confusion that they cannot bring themselves to say the obvious: the Muslim Brotherhood is our enemy, and the enemy of free people everywhere. They are the self professed enemy of Western notions of freedom and liberty. Their goal is an Islamic state. By any rational standard they are the personification of the West's struggle against radical Islamism.

Yet, Barack Obama actually invited the Muslim Brotherhood to his speech in Cairo in 2009 and Muslim Brotherhood affiliated organizations in the United States are routinely looked to by our government and the mainstream press as voices of moderation.

Ronald Reagan would have recognized the elite's total unwillingness to speak honestly about the nature of our enemies; he spent much of his career combating their similar inability to speak the truth about the totalitarian goals and aims of the Soviet Union.

Reagan would have been prepared to have an honest conversation about the ideological connection that unites our enemies and motivates them. He would have been prepared to say quite bluntly that we are in a long war against radical Islamism, a belief system adhered to by a minority of Muslims but nonetheless a powerful and organized ideology within Islamic thought that is totally incompatible with the modern world.

Reagan would also have consistently found ways to reach out to all Muslims who genuinely recognize the same universal rights of man laid out at our nation's founding and who stand up for our Constitutional principles and the importance of religious freedom for all.

Furthermore, Reagan would have vigorously rebuked those who jump on any honest discussion about radical Islamism as an attack against all Muslims. After all, they're the ones conflating radical Islamists with all Muslims, not those trying to speak honestly about our enemies. In fact, knowing Reagan's humor, he probably would have found a way to make a joke about their confusion.

The Lessons of Ronald Reagan for Egypt, #3:Focus on the Goal, Our Rendezvous with Destiny Many on the Left may find it odd that I cite Ronald Reagan as guidance on how to handle our challenges with radical Islamism in the Middle East.

After all, they will say, Reagan helped arm the Afghans. He backed Saddam Hussein against the Iranian government, etc.

Reagan had, however, one foreign policy goal: defeat the Soviet Union. Every decision he made was measured against the yardstick of whether it fit within his strategy to defeat the Soviets.

The result was that eleven years after he was elected President, the Soviet Union disappeared.

Today, our foreign policy goal is equally simple, but no less daunting than defeating the Soviet Union: isolate, discredit, and defeat those who promote the radical Islamist ideology that motivates those who seek to destroy Western civilization.

We must be similarly focused on this goal if we have any chance to succeed. Every aspect of our foreign policy must be in service of a strategy to achieve victory.

This is our generation's rendezvous with destiny. And ultimately, Ronald Reagan's most instructive message for meeting our challenge would probably be, "I did my generation's job. Now it's your turn."

My biggest concern about him in general is he is not 'touchy feely". He can't reach out to the "little guy" or minorities. He might have a shot at Reagan Dems though only the white ones.

Then again he is the only one so far among the the "top tier" candidates (to borrow from Doug) who is a real natural born thinker.

I am not optimistic about '12 on the Presidential side. Obama has been persauded and coached to play the middle from a PR and campaign mode though he is obviously still a radical liberal at heart and as much as he can get away with from a policy point of view. Therefore without a candidate who can cleary highlight the differences between the progressive agenda and a conservative one (like Newt), AND call out Obama for what he is and not allow him to deceive the swing voters, there is near zero chance a Republican can win IMHO.

If Obama keeps up the charm attack, like Clinton did, it is almost check mate.

History has proven this and Obama's poll numbers are already back up to prove my point.

Obama just need follow the script. It is already a proven winner. You can fool some of the people ALL of the time.

Does anyone hear think Palin, Huckleberry, or Romney can get swing voters?

I mentioned the massive, $300 million Gore-bastic global warming hype ad campaign a few weeks ago. I thought the Robertson/Sharpton pairing was going to be bad, but it’s nothing compared to these two stiffs on a couch peddling eco-alarmism. There was a time when Newt Gingrich and the Beltway GOP establishment could be counted on to defend free market environmentalism, property rights, and rational cost-benefit analyses. No more:

Mittens Romney and Newt, I find them smart and capable and utterly untrustworthy.

I agree. And I think much of America agrees too. The Republicans are on a role; surely they must be able to find someone better.

If the Republicans want to beat Obama, they need to find a fresh face; someone who is dynamic, conservative, but practical, experiencedand is a leader. And I don't mean Palin or Huckabee either. Maybe Jon Huntsman? He seems trustworthy and capable. Even I would vote for him.

But surely the Republicans can find someone "new" rather than rehashing the same old.....

In a speech he wrote for Vice President Spiro Agnew, the late William Safire coined a memorable term to describe the Washington press corps. He called them "the nattering nabobs of negativism." This timeless description was on my mind this weekend while reading the mainstream media's coverage of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

During my speech to CPAC, I tried to lay out a substantive and compelling alternative to Obama and the Democrat's left wing governance, focusing on American energy and environmental policies. I proposed an aggressive, all-American energy strategy that would dramatically boost all sources of energy production in our country.

I also proposed replacing the Environmental Protection Agency with a new Environmental Solutions Agency which would focus on technological solutions to our environmental challenges and adopt a collaborative approach with business and local government, instead of the command and control regulatory model of the EPA.

(You can watch my speech at Newt.org and let me know what you think.)

The record crowd of over 11,000 attendees reacted strongly to this vision for lower energy prices, more jobs, better environmental outcomes and a safer America. It was clear watching the crowd's reaction to my speech and the speeches of others that the conservative movement is energized by the possibility of winning an epic election in 2012. It's also clear they expect real conservative reform from a new conservative president and Congress.

Maybe that optimism and energy made some people nervous.

Before the event was even over, the mainstream media was hard at work trying to pour cold water on the fire that has been lit across this nation.

This article from the Associated Press sums up the doubt and skepticism that so many in our elite media seem intent on sewing amongst the American people.

The not-too-subtle message from these guardians against high expectations is crystal clear: Don't get your hopes up. Real change isn't possible in America. You might as well stay home. In fact, this piece of conventional wisdom is both historically wrong and insidious.

History shows that real change is possible, but only if the American people are informed and engaged.

Power Resides with the American People, Not in Washington

There are two great examples of successful conservative reform from the past thirty years.

The first was the Presidency of Ronald Reagan. The second was the new Republican majority after the Contract with America campaign of 1994. Both were able to deliver because they understood that real power resides with the American people, not in Washington.

If You Respect the American People, You Can Rely on the American People

Ronald Reagan had a rule of thumb when negotiating with the Democratic Congress.

This rule was described to me by an associate of Reagan's as, "I show the American people the light. They turn up the heat on Congress."

Ronald Reagan was known as the Great Communicator, but he can better be understood as a great educator. He thought that if he could use his platform as a national figure to inform the American people, they would provide the pressure to implement conservative reform.

That's how Ronald Reagan was able to cut taxes, reduce spending, and reform burdensome regulations to revive the American economy despite having to deal with a Democratic Congress that was opposed to his agenda. Reagan understood that the American people would pressure the Congress into doing the right thing. All Reagan had to do was champion policies that reflect American values and treat the American people with respect by being honest and clear about the facts.

Reagan's great foreign policy achievement was defeating the Soviet Union. Here too he relied on the American people for backup. He understood that his vision for victory – as opposed to détente – would be opposed by much of the establishment, within the news media and diplomatic corps, but supported by the American people.

Similarly, when I was Speaker, the Republican Congress was able to achieve its principal goals despite having to work with a liberal Democratic President. We balanced the budget while cutting taxes and increasing military and defense spending. It is a historic fact that Clinton never proposed a balanced budget. It was the Republican House that made it happen. (In this blog post at American Solutions, Peter Ferrara argues that President Obama is stealing a page from Clinton's playbook.)

All this was possible because we understood that President Clinton would eventually yield to the demands of the American people. That's why after twice vetoing another one of our principal goals, welfare reform, Clinton eventually signed it in 1996, before he ran for reelection. He knew he wouldn't be able to stand the heat from the American people if he didn't.

Campaigns on the Issues, Not Personalities Ronald Reagan and the Republican Congress under my Speakership also delivered on our goals because the preceding election campaigns focused on the issues, not on personalities.

In 1980, Reagan offered a bold, competing vision for America's future that outshone the malaise and weakness of Jimmy Carter. He promised to cut taxes to boost economic growth, to renew America's strength in the world by standing up to the Soviet Union, and to restore America's civic confidence in its founding and unique purpose (American exceptionalism).

With a weak economy and the hostage crisis in Iran in 1980, Reagan could have simply run as "not Carter" and emerged victorious. But then he would not have had a mandate to govern, and would never have been able to achieve his principal goals.

Similarly, in 1994, we explicitly crafted the Contract with America campaign around conservative reforms that we understood had overwhelming support in America (if not in the editorial pages of the NY Times) but had nonetheless been blocked by the Democratic House.

Consequently, despite having a liberal Democrat in the White House, we still managed to achieve a balanced budget, welfare reform, tax cuts, increased military and defense spending, and more.

Perhaps Republicans could have won control of the House in 1994 by simply running against Clinton. However, the Republican landslide would not have been as large, and we certainly would not have had the mandate necessary to enact real change.

Contrast these elections and subsequent real reforms to the 2004 and 2008 elections.

I wrote a white paper in 2004 pointing out that on over 70 key issues, John Kerry was on the wrong side of public opinion by larger than a 70-30 margin. An election campaign run on these issues would put John Kerry at an impossible disadvantage and could have led to a landslide result with a true mandate for President Bush to govern.

However, the choice in the minds of most American voters in the fall of 2004 wasn't over two competing visions for America; it was between forged National Guard papers and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth commercials. Accordingly, more people turned out to vote against John Kerry than to vote against George W. Bush. With no mandate to govern, is it any wonder that Bush's subsequent attempt to reform social security was dead on arrival?

In 2008, President Obama won an enormous victory. He carried states that had not voted Democrat in a long time. Democratic majorities in the House and Senate were increased. It seemed that he would have free reign to accomplish any number of liberal priorities.

However, because he had run a personality-focused, shallow campaign about "change" without clearly defining what that change meant for the American people, President Obama's political capital quickly ran dry. The only way he was able to pass the stimulus and health care bills was through brute force and political backroom dealing. His signature achievements were passed despite the will of the American people, not because of their support. That's why he was massively rebuked during the 2010 elections and much of his agenda is now being unwound.

A Contract with America in 2012 The lessons from past successes in achieving real change – and past failures – are clear.

Because power ultimately resides in the people, achieving real reform requires the expressed consent and engagement of the American people.

That means if America really is ever going to see that conservative future of freedom, faith and prosperity we heard at CPAC, we will need a campaign in 2012 that is waged on the great issues of the day.

We will need candidates that have a clear and substantive plan to govern and who can explain conservative solutions to the American people in a way that gets them excited and engaged.

We will need a new Contract with America in 2012.

A new Contract with America with specific, substantive, conservative solutions to the great challenges facing our nation is the only way to gain the mandate from the American people needed to bust through all the embedded interests in Washington and the state capitals that will oppose change.

If a new conservative President and Congress develop and win based off of a new Contract with America in 2012, there is nothing that can stand in the way of true conservative reforms that will create jobs, make America safer, and maximize individual freedom and dignity for all Americans.

"I proposed an aggressive, all-American energy strategy that would dramatically boost all sources of energy production in our country. " Great

"I also proposed replacing the Environmental Protection Agency with a new Environmental Solutions Agency" I don't like this.

"All this was possible because we understood that President Clinton would eventually yield to the demands of the American people. That's why after twice vetoing another one of our principal goals, welfare reform, Clinton eventually signed it in 1996, before he ran for reelection. He knew he wouldn't be able to stand the heat from the American people if he didn't" True except with the government stalemate that toppled Newt.

"His [Obama] signature achievements were passed despite the will of the American people, not because of their support." Not only that. They were passed despite Obama not because of him (the ONE)

"We will need a new Contract with America in 2012." Good idea. Perhaps it is better to wait to not let the Bamster try to co-op them. At least with phoney rhetoric.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Newt Gingrich needs no introduction to most Republican audiences. It is the reintroduction that is the challenge.

If Mr. Gingrich moves forward with a presidential bid, as his advisers and friends say he is poised to do as soon as this week, he will start with a reputation as one of his party’s most creative thinkers and a record of leading Republicans back to power in the 1990s and confronting Democrats on spending. But he will also have to grapple with aspects of his life and career that could give pause to elements of the Republican primary electorate, including a lack of a well-established association with religious conservatives and attendant questions about his two divorces.

So as he travels the country, he is striking two related notes: that the nation faces not just a fiscal crisis but also a loss of its moral foundation, and that his conversion to Catholicism two years ago is part of an evolution that has given him a deeper appreciation for the role of faith in public life.

On a recent winter night here, Mr. Gingrich, 67, stood on stage at a Catholic school with his wife, Callista, and introduced a film they produced about the role Pope John Paul II played in the fall of Communism in Poland. As Mr. Gingrich looked out over a crowd of 1,300 people, he warned that the United States had become too secular a society.

“To a surprising degree, we are in a situation similar to Poland’s in 1979,” he told the audience, which had gathered at a banquet for Ohio Right to Life, one of the nation’s oldest anti-abortion groups. “In America, religious belief is being challenged by a cultural elite trying to create a secularized America, in which God is driven out of public life.”

To most audiences, Mr. Gingrich does not talk directly about converting to Catholicism, but his faith has become an important part of his dialogue with conservative voters.

In an interview, Mr. Gingrich said he knew that a campaign would bring new attention on the full scope of his personal and political background. Last week, in an appearance at the University of Pennsylvania, he grew testy when he received a question from a Democratic student activist about the details of his two divorces.

“There are things in my life I’m not proud of, and there are things in my life I’m very proud of,” Mr. Gingrich said in the interview when asked what effect his background would have on a candidacy. “People have to decide who I am. Am I a person they want to trust to lead the country or not?”

In Washington, Mr. Gingrich, one of his party’s best known and most polarizing figures, may still be remembered for a spectacular rise and fall: the Republican takeover of the House in 1994, the confrontation with President Bill Clinton that led to a government shutdown the next year, ethics battles and his resignation as speaker in 1998. He also acknowledged having an extramarital affair with Callista Bisek, then a House staff member, while leading impeachment proceedings against Mr. Clinton for lying about his own sexual transgressions.

But elsewhere, Mr. Gingrich’s reinvention has long been under way, amplified through regular appearances on the Fox News Channel, as he tries to build support among the voters who will choose the 2012 Republican nominee.

Rival Republicans marvel at his deep well of ideas, his innate intellect and his knowledge of government. They also point to the strategic approach taken by the Gingrich team in the 2010 elections, including holding training sessions for a new generation of elected officials. He has secured important endorsements, including one from the new majority leader of the Iowa House, who has been courted by all potential presidential candidates.

Mr. Gingrich said he believed that the 2012 election was comparable in historic scope to 1932, when Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Herbert Hoover and ushered in the New Deal, and to 1860, when Abraham Lincoln prevailed over Stephen A. Douglas, setting the stage for the Civil War.

He urges Republicans to not settle for “rejection conservatism,” which simply casts aside liberal arguments, instead of “replacement conservatism,” which would fundamentally change institutions that he believes have outlived their effectiveness.

“That’s part of what the Republican Party has to come to grips with,” Mr. Gingrich said. “Does it want to be a party prepared to replace the failed institutions and move to a very bold new approach? Or does it want to try to muddle through accepting the framework of the systems that are failing?”

As always, Mr. Gingrich continues to mix the abstract and the more politically concrete.

The man who introduced the Contract with America in 1994, which still stands as a gold standard of political branding, now has a snappier jingle for today’s shorter attention span. The message is so concise that he pulls it from the breast pocket of his suit, no matter if he is delivering an intimate dinner speech or addressing a large audience, as he did recently at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

The note card reads: “2 + 2 = 4.”

It is an elementary lesson on spending and debt, he said, that has eluded the Obama administration. He uses it to present his broader view that the next presidential election should be a major debate over the size and scope of government.

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When President Obama changed his position last week and said he believed that the 1996 law barring federal recognition of same-sex marriages was unconstitutional, Mr. Gingrich waited a full day to offer his reaction. In a statement on Thursday, Mr. Gingrich kept his criticism confined to process, rather than the merits of marriage, saying: “The president is replacing the rule of law with the rule of Obama.”

It remains an open question how a new inspection of Mr. Gingrich’s record would hold up to scrutiny by voters, including his own spending votes and the 1995 government shutdown, but his advisers believe that it could be well received, given the sentiment of Tea Party supporters. And in the early going, Mr. Gingrich appears to be getting another look from religious conservatives, especially Catholics, a traditional swing constituency. Before and after his appearance here, dozens of people lined up to buy books, movies and other mementos that help finance the operations of Mr. Gingrich’s array of business enterprises and provide a window into his growing popularity among some social conservatives. Mr. and Mrs. Gingrich sat for more than an hour signing inscriptions, with his best-selling book, “Rediscovering God in America,” a particularly popular item on this snowy night in Ohio.

Dr. Jack Willke, an early leader in the anti-abortion movement in Ohio and across the country, was among those waiting for an autograph. Dr. Willke said he was delighted that Mr. Gingrich had increased the role of faith in his public appearances, something that he said he did not recall during Mr. Gingrich’s tenure as speaker of the House.

“We were there long before he was,” Mr. Willke said. “It was never a big public thing for Newt, but he’s surfaced now as considerably more so.”

As Dr. Willke and his wife, Barbara, mingled with others in the crowd, Mrs. Willke said she was delighted to read about Mr. Gingrich’s baptism as a Catholic in March 2009. When one woman asked about his conversion, Mrs. Willke replied: “His Catholicism certainly sounds legit, and even more so since Callista is in the picture now.”

A few feet away, another woman pulled a reporter aside and asked how many times Mr. Gingrich had been married. When told that the answer was three times, the woman said simply, “Oh.” (In 1981, he and his first wife, Jackie, divorced, and he married his second wife, Marianne, that year. In an episode often cited by his detractors, he visited Jackie in the hospital in 1980 while she was recovering from a cancer operation to discuss terms of their divorce. Mr. Gingrich disputes the account.)

When the conversation turned to marriage at the end of the 30-minute interview, Mr. Gingrich seemed displeased, but fully expecting questions about his personal life along with his ideas to change the country. He said he hoped voters would “look at the totality of someone who is 67 years old and a grandfather.”

Asked if he believed that people were forgiving, he replied, “We’ll find out.”

To those who support Newt or are tempted, what do you make of the past personal issues? a. Does any of it offend you, b. does any of it make you think these things will hurt his chances in the general election, c. does any of it show character issues that could detract from his ability to govern?

From my point of view, Yes I will vote for him if nominated, but that doesn't count because I will vote for any of the named Republicans over Barack Obama based on vast policy differences.

Yes it offends me. I don't see why the R. candidate has to run a nearly 2 year campaign with the apparent lesser of the moral character, and R's are traditionally hald to a higher standard IMO. Obama's family situation is almost too perfect. Maybe something else breaks on a guy this fond of himself and high on power, but as far as I can see he is clean as a whistle in his marriage and family life.

Forgiveness sucks and behavior matters from my point of view. As clear as I keep hearing Newt say 'Calista and I' today, I remember him not very long ago always saying 'Marianne and I'. 3 wives is too many without a couple of real good excuses. Lots of people will be offended. These politicians parade their wives and children in front of us to for political gain, to demonstrate character. Husband infidelity hits married women hard IMO; that is a key demographic Republicans need; R's who do terribly with single women and are challenged with women overall. Making it worse, Newt's timing was bad - to be screwing around during Clinton's impeachment. How can that story die and how can that not be a distraction for him and an obsession with validity for the angry left? A recent conversion to Catholic faith, during his preparation for a run, looks opportunistic to me. God can judge his soul but I say that here among mortals you get judged as the man that you were and all that criticism is fair game.

I honor his previous historic accomplishments, but 1994 was 18 years before 2012, and his feat of sweeping congress has now been repeated. I honestly see him as a policy developer, spokesman and strategist, not the nominee or the President.

There is no correct analogy for Newt, but look at the implosion of Rudy Giuliani who was an American icon before facing a little scrutiny. Looking forward to other points of view on this. For those who support him, tell us what your wife thinks about it all.

"I honor his previous historic accomplishments, but 1994 was 18 years before 2012, and his feat of sweeping congress has now been repeated. I honestly see him as a policy developer, spokesman and strategist, not the nominee or the President."

Did Newt flip flop or is it a bum rap? I'm guessing most of us have seen the footage of Newt calling for a NFZ and then saying he wouldn't have intervened. Sure looks like a flip flop, but is it?

I watched Newt get interviewed by Chris Wallace last night. CW is a quintessential Washington insider reporter (watch his clueless interview with Glenn Beck and you will see what I mean) and he is a very good one. I thought his questioning of Newt last night to be aggressive yet fair, and respectful of Newt as a human being.

In addition to several direct questions on Newt's personal issues and foibles (which were gracefully and graciously introduced) CW went right after Newt to ask the flip flop question.

If I have it right, Newt said that once Obama called for ousting Kadaffy, then as a good bipartisan American putting politics aside at the water's edge he supported doing it whole-heartedly and not in some half-assed manner, but that he would not have made the call to take Kadaffy down. This sounds reasoned to me, but he certainly is going to have one helluva time beating the flip flop rap on this one.

They all have this problem, including Obama and Sec. Gates. The point with Gingrich is that he wants to be held to a higher standard. He is (?) the one with experience, who has lived through tough policy questions, thought deeper and is most ready to take the 3am phone call and have the right reaction. Looks to me like all of them have been all over the map on this.

"For someone who holds himself out as a public intellectual, Gingrich comes across all too often as more glib than thoughtful..."

Consider the former speaker’s position(s) on Libya.

On March 7, before US military action against Moammar Khadafy had begun, Fox News Channel’s Greta Van Susteren asked Gingrich what he would do about Libya. Without hesitation, he called for aggressive American intervention and derided the president for not having ordered it already:

“Exercise a no-fly zone this evening,’’ Gingrich demanded. “The idea that we’re confused about a man who has been an anti-American dictator since 1969 just tells you how inept this administration is . . . This is a moment to get rid of him. Do it. Get it over with.’’

So eager was Gingrich for action that he wanted it done unilaterally:

America “doesn’t need anybody’s permission,’’ he said. “We don’t need to have NATO . . . We don’t need to have the United Nations . . . All we have to do is suppress [Khadafy’s] air force, which we could do in minutes.’’

Two weeks later, as the UN Security Council voted for a Libyan no-fly zone, Gingrich intensified his criticism. The Obama White House, he told Sean Hannity, “is maybe the most passive and out-of-touch presidency in modern American history.’’ Khadafy was still in place two weeks after the president said he had to go, Gingrich observed, and “there is no evidence that the no-fly zone by itself will be effective.’’

The next day, Gingrich told Politico that the president’s position on Libya “makes us look weak and uncertain and increases the danger in the Persian Gulf.’’

Yet by Sunday, with US missile strikes on Libyan air defense systems underway, Gingrich’s tune began to change. Now Obama was guilty of “opportunistic amateurism without planning or professionalism,’’ he said, and the only thing that could explain the administration’s decision was “opportunism and news media publicity.’’

On Wednesday, March 23, Gingrich went on NBC’s “Today’’ show to condemn the entire operation. “I would not have intervened,’’ he told Matt Lauder. “I think there were a lot of other ways to affect Khadafy.’’ For good measure he labeled the military campaign, which so far has gone pretty well, “about as badly run as any foreign operation in our lifetime.’’ That will come as news to anyone who can remember Vietnam, Somalia, or Iraq before the surge.

Thus in the space of three weeks, Gingrich went from blasting Obama for not imposing a no-fly zone in Libya “this evening’’ to blasting Obama for imposing a no-fly zone in Libya. On March 3 he wanted the president to tell Khadafy “that slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable and that we’re intervening.’’ By March 23 he was mocking “humanitarian intervention’’ as an unserious “public relations conversation.’’

But if the only consistent note in Gingrich’s ever-evolving position on Libya is that Obama is always wrong, just who is the unserious one? -------------------------I did not see the Chris Wallace interview. Quote his explanation of different positions:

On Libya, Gingrich told Wallace that it was the president who changed the rules on the Libyan game.

“I said [originally] we should be for replacing Gadhafi, without using the U.S. military. Now the president on March 3rd changed the rules of the game,” Gingrich said. “The president came out publicly and said: ‘Gadhafi must go.’ My original position was: If you’re not in the lake, don’t jump in; once you’re in the lake, swim like crazy.

“Now that the president has said ‘Gadhafi must go,’ our goal should be the defeat of the Gadhafi government, and the replacement of Gadhafi as rapidly as possible,” he said. “Ideally, by using Western air power, with Arab forces — including I think Egyptian and Moroccan and other advisers to help with the ground campaign — but I see no reason for American ground troops to go in.

“But I think the president has positioned us; once the president says Gadhafi must go, we have an obligation as a country to get rid of him,” Gingrich added. “It should be unequivocal.”

Very Funny GM. The marriage joke flew right over my head - three times.

One point I noticed unreported about the so-called past infidelity is that the potential new first lady, Mrs. Newt, that Newt so badly wants us to get to know, was also a knowing and consenting participant in the 'home wrecking' chapter. Someone try to tell me that married women, the majority are Republican, will be forgiving of that.

a) Are we buying his explanation? At the moment I am inclined to say yes

b) What do we make of his analysis?==================================

Measuring Obama’s Speech by Newt Gingrich

Monday morning, I posted to Facebook a five question checklist by which to measure President Obama’s speech on our military engagement in Libya.

Here is my analysis of how effectively the president answered those questions:

Does President Obama cite working with Congress more than working with the Arab League or the United Nations?

No. President Obama mentioned Congress just once in a 3,400 word speech. In contrast, he mentioned the United Nations Security Council and Arab league eight times. Furthermore, he dedicated a significant portion of his speech to the importance of cooperation between Western and Arab allies.

As I have said, I do think having allies in this effort is valuable, especially Arab ones. However, that desire must be appropriately balanced against the obligation the president has to respect Congress’ role, as well as the objectives of the mission at hand (more on this later).

President Obama made it remarkably clear in his speech that he places a much higher value on gaining the approval of the United Nations and the Arab League than he does on consulting Congress. By his own account, he committed the United States to action with a United Nations resolution before consulting with Congressional leaders, which he did only just before the bombing began.

The president also never seemed to consider the fact that allies – including Arab ones – could have been assembled faster in a way that bypassed the corruption of the United Nations.

Does President Obama define replacing Qaddafi as our clear and explicit goal? Having said Qaddafi “needs to leave" that has to be the goal of this war. No. In fact, he said quite the opposite, that our mission was to stop an imminent humanitarian catastrophe and that “broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake.”

There are two problems with the president’s argument.

The first goes back to the disproportional value the president places on gaining the approval of the United Nations.

The president tried to make the case Monday night that our military engagement was justified in order to protect human life. Yet, the first reports of Qaddafi’s forces firing on the Libyan people, including with his air force, arose in late February. On March 5th the Libyan dictator’s army fired on unarmed protesters. On March 6th, his forces laid siege to the rebel-held town of Zawiyah.

The president, however, chose to wait almost two weeks, until March 19th, for a diplomatic consensus to emerge and resolutions to be passed in the U.N. Security Council before taking action.

The disturbing conclusion one can draw from President Obama’s actions is that he believes the special duty he spoke of, for the United States to not turn a blind eye to atrocities committed by dictators, ranks lower on his list of priorities than gaining approval from the United Nations to do something about them. He clearly favors muddled coalition consensus to moral leadership.

The second problem is that leaving Qaddafi in power will not stop the humanitarian crisis; it simply drives it underground. In the face of overwhelming military superiority, Qaddafi will most likely conclude that his best option is to retaliate in ways that cannot be stopped with air power. In fact, hearing the President of the United States publicly say he would not use the military to drive him out of power will almost certainly convince Qaddafi his best option is to dig in.

The United States is signaling that all he has to do is wait it out because the president has explicitly told Qaddafi that we are not going to force him to leave power. This leaves us with an open ended commitment to enforce a no-fly zone. The Iraq no-fly zone lasted a dozen years and did not remove Saddam Hussein from power.

The simple fact is that so long as Qaddafi remains in power, the people of Libya remain at risk of violence by their government. That’s why the president’s “mission accomplished” message rings so hollow.

3. Does President Obama pledge to send a request to Congress to pay for the cost of the war so our men and women in uniform are not asked to take it out of an already stretched budget while they are still engaged in two other wars and several small campaigns?

No. The president did not mention how this effort was going to be paid for. All indications are that it will come directly from the Pentagon’s budget, leaving our men and women in uniform who are already stretched with even fewer resources.

4. Does President Obama acknowledge the danger of Al Qaeda allies among the anti-Qaddafi forces and pledge to work for a moderate replacement government without extremist factions?

Partial credit. The president never acknowledged the likelihood of the presence of al-Qaeda within the rebel forces but did speak vaguely about diplomatic efforts to “support a transition to the future that the Libyan people deserve.” He then concluded his speech with a more specific commitment that the United States would find ways to help those around the world that believe in core American principles.

5. Does President Obama describe clearly the coalition command structure, the American role, and an allied commitment to defeat Qaddafi?

No. In fact, his explanation of handing off command to NATO made it seem as if NATO was some sort of separate country with its own military resources. In fact, NATO is simply a military alliance and command structure through which our allies conduct joint military operations. In practice, handing off control of the operation to NATO only means that command will be transferred from American General Carter Ham (Commander of U.S. Africa Command) to American Admiral James Stavridis (Supreme Allied Commander-Europe).

The president also failed to mention there is currently another engagement being commanded by NATO – the mission in Afghanistan. Of course, mentioning that would have exposed the smokescreen he was trying to create, since the United States continues to pay a heavy financial and human toll in Afghanistan every day.

The president’s long overdue explanation to the country was unsatisfactory in providing clear objectives for Libya. He did not explain why he valued the consensus of the international community over the Congress. His previously stated goal of removing Qaddafi is not in line with the goals of the coalition. He has placed the U.S. military in the position of refereeing a civil war under the auspices of a humanitarian effort without a definition of success. Lastly, the president cannot say today when our commitment to enforcing the no-fly zone might end.

What Should Have Been Done versus What Must Be Done Now

On February 24, I stated that U.S. military force was not necessary to remove Qaddafi. He was clearly in a weak position and we could have worked with our allies, particularly our Arab allies, who want to see a post-Qaddafi Libya, using quiet, covert, and indirect action to get rid of Qaddafi.

On March 3rd the president took that option off the table when he unambiguously declared that Qaddafi must step down from power and leave. This statement put the authority and prestige of the United States against a dictator, committing the United States to that objective. Anything less would be seen as a defeat for the United States.

In that new reality, I commented on March 7th that we should declare a no-fly zone in support of the president’s public commitment to oust the dictator.

By March 19th, however, the president had dropped his objective of getting rid of Qaddafi and adopted the U.N.’s objective of enforcing a no-fly zone for a humanitarian cease-fire. I said at that time I did not support using the U.S military if it was not for the expressed purpose of removing Qaddafi from power. I reiterated that prior to March 3rd, I would not have intervened militarily, but after March 3rd the only reason to use military force was to get rid of Qaddafi.

World events are becoming more complicated, intertwined, and fast paced. As such, our leaders need to be able to adjust their analysis and prescriptions as the facts dictate.

You can watch and read a complete timeline of my statements on Libya here.

"By transparently running to the middle and sabotaging the Ryan budget, by implicitly accepting the single most offensive piece of policy of the Obama presidency, Gingrich has mortally wounded his presidential aspirations; unfortunately, he's done great damage to the GOP brand at the same time. But perhaps that's no surprise from a man who did an ad sitting on a couch with Nancy Pelosi to warn us all about the dangers of man-made climate change."

My strong support of Newt in 2008 is of record around here, as are my increasing expressions of doubt this time around. THIS I think is a fatal blow to any remaining willingness on my part to consider him seriously.

Weaknesses and errors from Newt are sad because of his amazing accomplishments and amazing upside potential.

Newt is called by so many the smartest guy in the room but his brain keeps working outward to what else can we do, instead of like Reagan, narrowing and simplifying things down to 2 or 3 essential causes and focusing tirelessly on getting them accomplished.

Besides the why he did it, what was he lobbying for when he sat down with Nancy Pelosi? More restrictions on energy production and use, right as we were shooting our private economy in the foot from several directions creating government induced misery. Besides misjudging the problem, there was a government-based solution? And Nancy Pelosi could be the partner to get us there? I don't believe that.

How do we fight Obama over an unconstitutional mandate by backing a mandate?

How do we win with the Ryan plan while sabotaging the Ryan plan? For one thing, Ryan is extremely open to comment and better ideas. That criticism could have happened in private and a much improved plan could have come out of it in a nation changing press conference.

If Newt had soared to frontrunner, how was the media supposed to diplomatically ask the new wife about how this beautiful romance and partnership began. Newt should know better than anyone, conservatives are held to a higher standard. We are all human but you can not live your life less moral than your liberal opponent.

And the McCain experience should have told Newt, you don't bring conservatism to the mainstream by first pissing off all the conservatives.

Smarts includes both book smarts and street smarts/common sense. Lacking of either is a lacking in smarts.

Yesterday in Mason City, Iowa, I signed the Obamacare Repeal Pledge, sponsored by the Independent Women’s Voice and American Majority Action. Obamacare is such a massive and complex power grab of a law that there are countless specific reasons to oppose the law.

But as I was signing the repeal pledge, I reflected upon three big reasons that Obamacare must be repealed:

It’s Unconstitutional. Period. As Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has argued, if the federal government has the power to force you to purchase a product or service, there is no end to its power.

As I argue in my forthcoming book, A Nation Like No Other: Why American Exceptionalism Matters and show in Callista's and my documentary, A City Upon a Hill: The Spirit of American Exceptionalism, Obamacare’s mandate to purchase health insurance is an assault on our country’s founding principles of limited, clearly delineated federal powers and an erosion of the rule of law.

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution clearly spells out the powers of the federal government. When the Democratic Congress passed Obamacare, the bill’s supporters argued that the individual mandate was constitutionally justified under the Commerce Clause, a provision that gives Congress the power to “regulate Commerce…among the several States.”

This is a gross misinterpretation of the Commerce Clause. The Founders designed this clause to prevent American states from imposing tariffs on each other or engaging in other restrictive trade practices that would hamper the economy. But in the last century, big government advocates have misused this stipulation to justify federal regulation of energy, trucking, financial services, and other assorted activities.

Obamacare takes this overly-broad interpretation of the Commerce Clause to an absurd extreme. If the federal government can force us to buy health insurance, what is stopping it from forcing us to buy other products?

This is why dozens of state attorneys general have filed suit against Obamacare, charging that the individual mandate is unconstitutional.

A Corrupt, Bureaucratic Power Grab

Aside from this mammoth expansion of federal power, Obamacare also violates the rule of law by granting vast discretion to administrative agencies. In fact, Obamacare grants 1,968 new powers to government agencies and bureaucrats, most of them to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, who administers Obamacare. You can see all these powers spelled out on a massive wall chart at healthtransformation.net.

This discretionary power wielded by unelected bureaucrats presents an enormous danger for corruption. Indeed, we have already seen how they can be abused.

Obamacare empowers the Secretary of HHS to issue waivers that exempt companies and organizations from the law’s many expensive and onerous requirements. To date, HHS has issued over a thousand waivers, including ones to Big Labor and other powerful supporters of the Democratic Party. This is all profoundly unfair to the millions of small businesses who lack the money and resources to influence Washington.

Yesterday, a report emerged that showed nearly 20% of the new waivers issued by HHS are in Nancy Pelosi’s congressional district.

This arbitrary “rule by waiver” is a fundamental violation of the rule of law. In fact, it absolutely negates the rule of law, replacing it with the rule of HHS Secretary Sebelius, Obama, and the Democratic Party.

The Wrong Model

Finally, Obamacare’s big government model, with its mandates, new bureaucracies and regulations, is simply the wrong way to lower costs and achieve better health outcomes. It is Washington centered instead of individually centered.

The current market for health care is broken because consumers do not shop based on price and quality. We have to redesign the system into one that responds to these downward cost pressures, like every other functioning market does.

We can’t do that by empowering bureaucrats and lawyers. Instead, you need to empower patients with access to quality information, including the real costs of the care they receive and give them the freedom to choose their providers based on that knowledge.

This will create a true healthcare marketplace where providers compete to provide the best care at the lowest cost. In this free market model, the 71 million baby boomers entering retirement would represent a boom, not bust, for healthcare.

Will You Sign the Pledge?

The Obamacare Repeal Pledge is not just for lawmakers and candidates.

There is a space for citizens to sign as well to show support for repealing Obamacare.

FWIW I don't think we should write off Newt. He needs handlers just like the Bamster. He is far more a visionary than Obama ever was. Has anyone ever heard any original thinking out of Bamster???

Newt needs people to keep a leash on him and probably should have a telepromter like the progressive's spokesperson.

IMO Newt is right. I think Rush is somewhat off in his thinking. Reagan is over. Conservatism is not. The two are not incapatable.We can build on Reagan but lets not simply rehash it.

You know. The closest one to my thinking is get ready ---- John Stossel. This guy who may be too libertarian for me overall is the ONLY one I see who goes after the freeloaders who are both rich AND poor. THAT is what I am talking about. We need a level playing field. One in which we don't get people cheating from whatever socioeconomic class they are from.

NO ONE is speaking to this. I know I am right. Most Republicans still don't get it. Neither do Democrats. The former care the latter don't give a crap IMO.

Woof, You're correct they accomplished getting a majority, then they used it to be one of the most medicore Congress's in history and pissed it away. When Bush II went in he could have gotten control of illegal immigration, brought the Assault Weapons ban to an early end and gotten rid of most of Clinton's buddies in the government, buddies that just kept on doing what Clinton had them doing, like using the CIA to track down black market CD's and movies for his Hollywood pal's. They got in and they sat on everything and here we are. I'm not at all happy with that; of course it was still ten times better than letting the Dems keep control. What a sorry state we are in right now. P.C.

"The way I remember it the Gingrich Congress exercised control over Clinton spending, cornered him into a major welfare reform, cut the capital gains tax rate, and ran a budget surplus"----

All true, and more. Obviously the electoral success of 1994 was based on his vision and direct leadership. The hemisphere wide free trade agreement (Reagan's vision) was an accomplishment of Clinton with the majority of Republicans and a minority of Dems while Newt was whip. The capital gains cut was hugely important in the economic growth that employed the nation and balanced the budget, overcoming the slow growth of Clinton's earlier tax hike. Welfare reform brought pride to the inner city and temporarily changed the direction of the role of government. Also the telecom deregulation act of 1996 spurred phenomenal growth in conjunction with a friendlier investment environment. Reelection of those congresses 5 times (even after Gingrich) bolster the point of his success. The ethics charges forcing him out I believe proved to be bogus and unfair, like what Palin faced after drawing attention in Alaska.

If the Presidential race comes down to who has done the most so far for the conservative movement, Gingrich has already won and there is no second place. If he is the nominee, I am his supporter.

Jay Cost, not talking about Gingrich, says the party is seeking conservative, authentic and exciting. Gingrich is now trying to prove he is still conservative. He has problems with authenticity. The excitement he is stirring unfortunately is from Democrats. He quickly clarified and reversed the remarks made Sunday, but damage is already done (and it isn't the first time). http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2011/05/19/gingrich-will-star-in-democrats-anti-ryan-medicare-attacks According to [Dem] party sources, they plan to use Gingrich's assault on House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's plan in a bid to knock down every Republican who voted for it, and every Republican voted for it.

Figuring out Newt's positions is too hard. I still see him now as more of a strategy and policy guy behind the scenes than as the candidate and the face of the movement. (I prefer lower key and less excitement, but I'm the midwesterner here.) You can't govern effectively with high disapprovals. You can't lead effectively without building up your teammates. You can't win the general election without support from independents, and for sure you don't win by splitting the conservative movement.

His openness for ideas in the American Solutions project was extremely admirable. Maybe I am too early on this but I say the time for brainstorming is over. It is time to tell us what you came up with - in crystal clear clarity.

RUSH: ... Let's try to cut to the chase here. There seems to be some confusion over your position -- or people's understanding of your position -- on the individual mandate, and it goes back to Meet the Press on Sunday where you seemed to say that you were for a mandate, then later said you weren't; and it sounded to some people like you were being critical of Paul Ryan when you used the term "social engineering" to describe parts of his Medicare solution in his budget. What is "social engineering"? What does that mean to you? I'm not sure I understand.

GINGRICH: Well, can I just take the two one step at a time?

RUSH: Yeah.

GINGRICH: David Gregory brought up an 18-year-old interview, in 1993, on Hillarycare, which we were in the process of defeating. And in 1993, the conservative alternative to government-run health care was you buying your own insurance. Now, I still have not seen the total interview. What I should have said to him is, "Gee, why don't you play the rest of the interview? Let's see the context of that conversation," but that was an 18-year-old tape about a totally different fight when we were trying to stop Hillarycare from taking over health care.

RUSH: But, Newt, I've got some quotes from you from 2004 and 2006, I think, basically advocating the same principle that it's not fair that somebody should be treated if they don't have insurance.

GINGRICH: (garbled) I'm giving a speech in New Hampshire next week outlining how we can apply the Tenth Amendment to solving health problems and how we can use patient power and do it with zero mandates. No federal mandate, no state mandate. This is a topic [John] Goodman and I worked on now for a decade. He's probably the leader -- you know John well -- of this kind of solution. I'm opposed to any federal mandate. I do not believe any state should adopt a mandate. I think there are ways to solve the problem without a mandate. But we're trying to solve three things: Preserve American freedom; ensure that people can have health care; and have some sense of responsibility that if you do get health care, you ought to pay for it -- which is the opposite of the liberal position that you ought to have free health care and somebody else ought to take care of you. So I think that's a very... That position is very clear.

RUSH: Okay, what was the point of the Republican --

GINGRICH: And by the way, I talked with Paul Ryan about this two days ago and I look forward to very much to continuing to work with him -- and, as you know, I endorsed his budget. I wrote a newsletter endorsing his budget. I think it's a very courageous step in the right direction. He concedes that the Medicare part of it is the beginning of a conversation. It's not a final document; it's not the last bill, and I want us to have an approach which allows everyone in the country to be engaged, to understand that it is a better Medicare system that is fiscally gonna survive and that -- if designed right -- will lead to more innovation, more choices, and better outcomes.

So, I think he and I are pretty much on track. What I was trying to say that day -- and I was answering a very specific question by David Gregory which, by the way, had nothing to do with the budget vote. I would have voted "yes" on the Ryan budget. It had to do with this question -- and I'd be curious, Rush, to hear your answer. "If there was a major change that affected the lives of every American..." and not necessarily in Medicare, "...a major change that affected the lives of all Americans, and the party in power had failed to convince the American people that it was the right thing to do, should that party impose that change against the will of the American people?"RUSH: No, but you've just described the entire Obama administration agenda.

GINGRICH: Right, and all I was trying to say that day was: It's fundamentally wrong for Obama to try to impose a left-wing America against the will of the American people. I believe as a center-right majority we are the will of the American people. I believe we can get a majority for what we want --

RUSH: (sigh)

GINGRICH: -- but that's not what David Gregory asked me. He said, "Would it be okay for us to impose against the will...?" It was a very specific question he asked.

RUSH: Newt, this is very difficult. You're on a cell phone, and because of that you can't hear questions I'm trying to ask you. So this is a bit frustrating for me 'cause I want to go back to three or four answers ago. You yourself said that it was the conservative position in '93 to support a mandate. The Heritage Foundation even had a paper back then supporting a mandate in opposition to Hillarycare, as you said, 'cause they were trying to eventually get to single-payer. Heritage later said: You know, it's not workable; it's not constitutional; it doesn't work out.

I know that's what Gregory was asking you about, but still: People can produce quotes from more recently than 1993 of you advocating posting a bond or having a mandate that people buy insurance, under the premise that it's not fair that somebody not buying insurance should be able to waltz into an emergency room and get treated. So the question is: Why, back in 1993, was it the conservative position to support a mandate in opposition to Hillarycare?

GINGRICH: I think we went through a long evolution, and I've been part of that. I mean, I'll be clear: I think I've reached conclusions different over an 18-year period than I would have in 1993. In '93, we were narrowly focused on trying to beat Hillary, the Hillarycare project. We weren't thinking fundamentally about resetting the country, and I give Heritage a great deal of credit, and I give John Goodman at the National Center for Policy Analysis a great deal of credit.

They, more than anybody else, began the process of thinking through: "If you were not gonna mandate because it's wrong -- at either the federal or state level -- to impose that on people, how could you design a system that encouraged people to be fiscally responsible, to pay for the things they got, and at the same time enable them to buy health insurance if they wanted to? I've consistently said all along: You could never impose a universal mandate. You'd have to have alternatives that allowed people to find ways to not be forced into buying insurance, because I'm very aware of the fact that there are substantial number of people...

I have a good friend who's a Christian scientist, and she said to me, "You know, it would violate my religious freedom for you to impose on me health insurance since I don't believe in using it." Now, I thought... That, frankly, I thought was a very compelling argument. That was part of the evolution as we thought this through, and in the speech I'll give next in New Hampshire I'm gonna outline the patient power model that John Goodman has been building; and I'm gonna suggest that we want to apply the Tenth Amendment to return most of these decisions back to the states and to recognize that Washington has been a grand failure at trying to solve health care in a centralized way.

RUSH: Now, look, this is really uncomfortable for me because you know that we've known each other a long time and I've had such -- and still do -- profound respect, admiration, and even envy for your intellect at times. But there's just some things that are confusing me. There's a June 2007 op-ed in the Des Moines Register, and you wrote, "Personal responsibility extends to the purchase of health insurance. Citizens should not be able to cheat their neighbors by not buying insurance, particularly when they can afford it, and expect others to pay for their care when they need it."

An "individual mandate," you added, should be applied "when the larger health-care system has been fundamentally changed." The reason why all of this matters now is that 26 states are suing the Obama administration over the Commerce Clause violation of an individual mandate, and yet it appears that there are some on our side who have also supported this, and your appearance on Sunday with Gregory... I know he was going back to 1993, but when you answered it also with the "social engineering" side of it. I don't think it's good left or right, that's why people thought that it was a slam at Paul Ryan.

And so that's why this stuff is there and is not going away, because it seems that they can go back into archives and find where you have continually supported it even since 1993, and in the current context of us opposing all of Obamacare because we think the fastest way to beat it is to knock down the unconstitutionality of a mandate it just offers confusion here -- and that's why people are constantly asking you about this. What they want is a satisfying, reassuring answer. They just don't want to think you're not conservative anymore, Newt.

GINGRICH: Well, look, let me say a couple things that you can verify. When Bill McCollum as attorney general took the lead in the 26-state suit, I actively personally supported him. I encouraged him. I spoke out in his favor. I helped him get coverage. When [Virginia Attorney General Ken] Cuccinelli took the lead was the first person to file a lawsuit, I actively encouraged him and supported him. At the Center for Health Transformation we have been wrestling for nine years with the question: How do you have an affordable health system when you realize if you talk to hospital administrators, people have been taught over the last half century that health is their right, and they don't have to pay for it. So you have people who earn 75 or a hundred thousand dollars a year who won't pay their hospital bills. They just say, "I'm not doing it," and we were wrestling with what's the technique? How do you find personal responsibility without infringing on people's liberty.

RUSH: Right.

GINGRICH: As I said, my conclusion ultimately was that these various efforts were going to work -- and I have opposed the Obamacare proposal largely from the Center for Health Transformation for two and a half years. The three best charts destroying Obamacare's credibility all exist at HealthTransformation.net, and they combine, have 115 square feet of charts that you put up a wall. They're amazing. We did all that work, and we actively, aggressively have opposed Obamacare at every stage.

RUSH: All right. Newt Gingrich is with us.BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We're back with Newt Gingrich here on the EIB Network. Okay, we want everybody to be responsible for their health care, but you now oppose mandates. So how do we solve that?

GINGRICH: Well, John Goodman has developed an entire approach in which he would give everyone the same tax break if they wanted to buy insurance, and the people who didn't want to buy insurance wouldn't be compelled to. Their share of the tax break would go into a high-risk pool. And if something did happen to them, they would then be eligible for the high-risk pool, but they would also be limited to the high-risk pool. And so they wouldn't have -- you wouldn't have -- an automatic assumption that you would be able to go be taken care of except through the high-risk pool because you'd made the voluntary decision you wanted to live at risk. He wrote a book several years ago called Patient Power and we began meeting at the American Enterprise Institute about these ideas in about 2001 -- and he's really, I think, probably the leading student of developing a personal freedom approach to how you solve the health problem.

RUSH: "The health problem" in a lot of people's minds exists precisely because of government, and therefore to a lot of people -- and I'll throw myself in with them -- the government's the last place the solution to this problem should be. The government messed it up; the government continues to mess it up. There's no evidence or proof that people in government are any smarter than people in the health care business to fix what's wrong. Why do we continue to accept the premise?

I mean, you're in a little bit of a trouble here simply because everybody's accepting the premise put forth by the liberals that government must fix, must police, must control health care because only they can do it fairly. We've gotten ourselves into a circumstance... I saw a statistic the other day that explains why we're in this mess. Of every $1 spent on health care, only 12¢ is paid for by the patient. Imagine, Newt, if you only had to pay 12% of every meal you ate. You wouldn't care what it costs, and that's where we are now, and government has created that circumstance.

GINGRICH: You're right.

RUSH: Getting government out of this is the solution to it.

GINGRICH: Right, and that's why my program will be among the most bold in American history at saying -- not just on this topic, but of many other topics -- we have to have a fundamental break with the last 80 years going back to 1932; that we've had a steady migration towards Washington and a steady migration towards bureaucracy, and a steady migration towards redistribution -- and if we're serious about stopping it, this will be the most decisive break since 1932. I wrote a book in 2002 called Saving Lives & Saving Money, which made exactly your argument.

It said: No third-party payment model ever works because you'd never have the buyer-seller relationship, and you only get satisfaction when the person getting this good or service is paying something and the person who's providing the good or service is getting something and they're looking each other in the eye and the system works. Now, how you migrate back to that is very complicated and you have to do it in a way that the country understands it and will accept it. So in Medicaid I will be proposing that we implement the Tenth Amendment by block granting all Medicaid back to the states, letting the states figure out what to do with it and recognizing that Washington has failed and that we need the experiments of the governors and the state legislatures trying to solve health for the poor.

RUSH: Okay, so you're signing on with the Ryan plan, essentially?

GINGRICH: Oh, yeah. I signed on for that part of the Ryan plan from day one. I've advocated consistently from day one, and, you know, I --

RUSH: What did you call to apologize to him for?GINGRICH: I have talked to him for years; and my wife, Callista, has known him since he was an intern. We're big fans of Paul Ryan. But the second thing I would do, though, is I -- and this is the part of what probably got me in trouble so let me be very open about it. I believe we are better off as conservatives who believe in markets, to design choice for people so people can make the decision that this is better for them.

And when I was chairing the Medicare taskforce in '96, we initially designed Medicare Advantage to be attractive to people, so they would voluntarily go to it. Well, 25% of all seniors have found Medicare Advantage to be something they like. We began building in health savings accounts, 'cause we want people to decide they like controlling their own money. I would like to see Congressman Tom Price's bill, which allows private contracting on a voluntary basis. I mean, one of these we learned in 1996 with extensive focus groups is senior citizens love to be allowed to choose.

They hate to be forced to choose, and so you want to say to them, "If you would like to have private contracting, if you would like to be allowed to spend your own money, if you're in a position where you'd like to do things your own way, why wouldn't we give you that freedom? We don't have the government require you to buy a government house after 65 or go in a government vacation or pick up a government car. So why not liberate Medicare to the point where seniors can choose?" and then the marketplace -- doctors, hospitals, pharmacies -- they've gotta organize competitively. So it's a more desirable future to accept the conservative personal choice option over the government bureaucrat-control option.

RUSH: Okay, now, I need to ask you because this is something you said on Sunday with Gregory that you didn't believe in "left wing or right-wing social engineering." What is that? Define social engineering for me.

GINGRICH: It's very straightforward. It's when the government comes in and tells you how to live your life and what you're gonna do, whether the values that lead it to do that are left-wing values or the values that lead it to do that are right-wing values. I believe in personal freedom. I believe in your right to lead your life. I believe that we are endowed by the Declaration of Independence, by Our Creator with the right to pursue happiness --and I want a government that is much more humble about its ability to tell you what to do, whether it's people on either side of the ideological spectrum. By the way, it was not a reference to Paul Ryan. There was no reference to Paul Ryan in that answer.

RUSH: Well, then what did you apologize to him about?

GINGRICH: Because it was interpreted in a way which was causing trouble, which he doesn't need or deserve, and was causing the House Republicans trouble. One of my closest friends -- somebody I truly, deeply respect -- e-mailed me and said, "You know, your answer hits every Republican who voted for the budget." Well, my answer wasn't about the budget. I promptly went back and said publicly, and continue to say: "I would have voted for the Ryan budget. I think it's a very important first step in the right direction," and I have consistently said that from the time that Paul first briefed me on it weeks before he introduced it -- and I've been talking with Paul Ryan about budget matters for the last four years.

"Citizens should not be able to cheat their neighbors by not buying insurance, particularly when they can afford it, and expect others to pay for their care when they need it"

Good point. There is no easy answer to this.

Some claim health care is a right. Laws mandate Emergency departments treat people no matter what their coverage or lack thereof or ability to pay.

So in the end we pay for those who do not buy their health care and end of with an acute illness that could cost huge amounts. Unless they find the way to pay for it. And we all know how that works.

The only other way is we do go after people to pay their bills and it remains their repsonsibility to get the money. If they declare bankruptcy the rest of us are screwed.

People don't get insurance because they can't pay for it, can't get it (preexisting condition), or take a chance.

But all these groups know they can show up in an ER and they will get treated.

As a society the MSM will have us believe that "we all agree" that we must help people without insurance or not. Indeed, they act as though we are all for covering even illegals. I am not so sure that most people do feel this way but maybe. Then again there are far more people of the "rich should pay crowd" than the latter.

I'm still digesting the interview by Rush there , , , what do we make of it?

In the meantime, here's these examples of what he will need to deal with:============When Newt Gingrich launched his bid for the GOP presidential nomination last week, we knew there would be some Sturm und Drang added to the race. Newt's brain is always running, but sometimes his mouth runs even faster. That became painfully obvious just four days later.

During a discussion on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday about Paul Ryan's Medicare reform plan, Gingrich declared that such reforms were "too big a jump." If he had stopped there, we may never have heard about it. Instead, he proceeded, "I'm against ObamaCare, which is imposing radical change. And I would be against a conservative imposing radical change." Furthermore, "I don't think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering."

And that's when the fight started.

Some wondered for which party's nomination he's running, while others simply declared his campaign toast. Dick Armey, now the chairman of FreedomWorks, but a co-writer of the "Contract with America" made famous by Newt, said he doesn't understand why Gingrich thought "he helps himself by attacking the one guy [Ryan] that [conservatives] see as being courageous" about getting "government spending under control." Brendan Steinhauser, director of Federal and State Campaigns for FreedomWorks, says the Tea Partiers he's talked to are "irate" at Gingrich, because "For them, this is the fourth or fifth time he's done something that has made them mad." In fact, Steinhauser concluded, "I never met a single Tea Party activist that supported Newt Gingrich for president." Ryan himself laughed it off, saying, "With allies like that, who needs the Left?"

At first, Gingrich dug in and argued that his "establishment cocktail party" critics were taking his remarks out of context. Then he signed a pledge to repeal ObamaCare if elected. Tuesday, he cried uncle and called Ryan to apologize. But then he jumped the shark, saying, "It was not a reference to Paul Ryan. There was no reference to Paul Ryan in that answer," and he only apologized because "it was interpreted in a way which was causing trouble which he doesn't need or deserve." Has he been taking lessons from John Kerry? Gingrich has spent the better part of his first week on the campaign trail mopping up a mess that he should've known better than to make in the first place.

Medicare is one of the biggest pieces to the federal spending puzzle. If we are ever to solve the debt crisis (more on that below), we must address Medicare. Ryan's proposal, which includes moving future recipients (age 55 and under) to a "premium support" model for Medicare, will be debated by conservatives, savaged by liberals and ultimately modified -- though it's doubtful it will be any better for it. It isn't gospel, and it isn't the test by which all candidates must be measured, but criticism by fellow Republicans should at least be accompanied by better ideas. As National Review's Jonah Goldberg put it, "Newt's immediate policy proposals on Meet the Press were twofold: attack fraud and 'start a conversation.'"

"Mr. Ideas" is going to have to do a lot better than assaulting Ryan's plan and sitting on a love seat with Nancy Pelosi to win the GOP nomination. Better yet, he could just "keep up the good work" and lose the nomination.

Gingrich vs. Gingrich"I agree that all of us have a responsibility to help pay for health care. And I think that there are ways to do it that make most libertarians relatively happy. I've said consistently, where there's some requirement you either have health insurance or you post a bond or in some way you indicate you're going to be held accountable." --Newt Gingrich on "Meet the Press" Sunday

"I am completely opposed to the ObamaCare mandate on individuals. I fought it for two and a half years. ... I am against any effort to impose a mandate on anyone because I believe it is fundamentally wrong and unconstitutional." -- Newt Gingrich in a campaign video Monday

Thanks for clearing that up, Newt.

(Hat tip: Wall Street Journal Political Diary)

Quote of the Week"Debating the issues is perfectly fine. It's the way Gingrich talks about things that is so awful. He is incapable of disagreeing on any matter about anything without creating a whirlpool of negativity that ends up sucking in his own confreres while leaving his partisan and ideological antagonists amazingly untouched. In the end, then, no matter the issue, Gingrich somehow manages to turn the conversation away from the topic at hand and focuses it squarely on him -- what he said, what he meant, what he was doing, why he did it, what's the matter with him. The Ryan apology just added to the psychodrama of the last few days with Gingrich. The havoc generated by his narcissism will not abate. It can't. Alas." --columnist John Podhoretz========Anyway, what do we make of what he said with Rush?